Best Secret Recipes (2011)

Grandma used to say, "Don't talk with your mouth full." When we're at Il Posto, we're constantly shoving food into our pie holes, because, well, everything they serve there tastes so great. And so, with our faces full of pizza and pasta, we've never gotten around to asking for the ingredients in these and other amazing Italian delicacies served at the former Our Gang diner.

It's just as well. We've been told that the recipes at this North Central Phoenix gem were all handed down from Grandma Brescia, the matriarch of the New York family that founded Il Posto nearly 20 years ago. The Brescia family's quality menu, rustic décor, neighborly feel, and mouthwatering dishes are made all the more appetizing by the warm, friendly patio, a red brick replica of the Manhattan neighborhood where owner Dino Brescia's father grew up.

Sure, a lot of restaurants serve stuffed mushroom caps, but Il Posto's are stuffed with a seasoned mushroom stuffing served in a brandy cream sauce. Brandy cream sauce? That sounds like something Grandma — at least a nice Italian Grandma — might come up with. And spicy corkscrew pasta with Italian sausage, prosciutto, peppers, mushrooms, and onions in a marinara sauce topped with shaved Parmesan — that one hollers "Grandma!" too. In an Italian accent, that is.

Is that red chili we taste in the rigatoni pomodori? Can it be blue cheese in the cream sauce Il Posto ladles over its fluffy, potato-y gnocchi? The Brescias aren't saying. Family recipes are a secret worth keeping, we suppose, especially when they lead to the kind of amazing dishes that come from the secrets that this nice Italian family are keeping.